An Australian woman who describes herself as “a really fun spontaneous person”, has begged the internet for help after she woke one day while holidaying in Fiji to find a brand new tattoo on her upper thigh — that she doesn’t know the meaning of.
Avid traveller and budding influencer Amy Dickinson was holidaying in Fiji last month and, like many Australians, chose to get a tattoo to remember her time at the holiday hotspot. Taking to social media, and without explaining the circumstances leading up the tattoo, Dickinson explained that she — somehow — ended up with the tattoo, which reads “matanivola levu”.
A native English speaker, Dickson said she truly had no idea what the words translated to, and desperately asked others for an explanation. “I didn’t know Fijians could be so mean because now I’ve got a tattoo and nobody can tell me what it means, so can someone tell me what I have on my body, please,” she said through tears on social media.
Fijians weigh in with true meaning of Aussie’s mystery tattoo
Quickly, Fijians weighed in, revealing that matanivola levu simply translates to “capital letters”. People responding were both in hysterics and scratching their heads over how Dickinson allowed such a blunder to take place.
“Why would you get a tattoo without knowing the meaning?” one person said. “That’s actually hilarious, it says capital letters but it’s all lower case — brilliant,” said another. “Fijians aren’t mean. We are just born with crazy humour,” said a third.
Many asked Dickinson for context over what led to the tattoo, which she addressed in a follow-up video, albeit very vaguely. “Well I’m just like a really fun spontaneous person, and sometimes that’s a good thing and sometimes that’s a bad thing — now I’ve got this tattoo that apparently means capital letters. What the f**k,” she said.
Australians all too familiar with tattoo fails overseas
Dickinson’s not the only Aussie traveller to talk about their tattoo fails in recent times. An influencer revealed in May that she made the exact mistake that she advised another tourist not to do — and got a ‘horrid’ tattoo of a Bintang beer bottle.
The young woman, named Rhiannon, shared that after a night out on the popular holiday island, she’d woken up to discover she had decided to get not one, but two, tattoos.
Last year, a young Australian woman was devastated after getting a $120 tattoo in Bali thanks to a simple oversight by the tattoo artist. The tearful 19-year-old influencer, Tia Kabir, said she went to the popular Indonesian island with the intention of getting her much-anticipated ‘Generation Z style tattoo’, but was horrified by what she was left with.
It was meant to say “Angel Energy” — a phrase signifying she has celestial energy she can pass on to others. But what she got instead was “Energy Angel”.
